Save the World
by howdoIremembermyusername
Summary: Simple. The Earth needs to be rescued from the clutches of stereotypical behind-the-scenes manipulators, evil demonic forces, zombies, and who-knows-what-else by the TF2 teams in this extremely convoluted and idiotic tale. They'd do better to choose someone else to rely on, however.


**It Begins**

* * *

The guard woke up. He was a bulky, huge beast of a man. He was sluggish at first, as might be expected for a man of his stature. Then he looked over to his alarm clock.

**7:00**. Whew

There was still a few minutes or so until his shift would start, 7:15 to be precise. So he laid in bed for a few more minutes. He hit the snooze button. At exactly 7:05, then, the alarm came up. (It was a five minute snooze alarm, rather than the normal nine). He groggily rubbed his eyes, still wanting to savour the last feelings of sleep and dreams.

Then he got up clumsily from the bed, throwing aside the sheets and not bothering to make them. He walked over to the bathroom, which was like a small closet equipped with a toilet and running water, and splashed some cold water into his face. He then picked up the toothbrush and attacked his teeth, wanted to get rid of the terrible taste that always developed in one's mouth after a night of sleep. Feeling fresh in his mouth afterwards, he picked up his blue uniform off of the shelf and put it on. 7:08, he was sure he'd brushed the two minutes that he usually tried for.

He exited his quarters, picked a newspaper off the ground, and walked down the long corridor to the elevator which was heavily guarded by surveillance of all sort and some things he figured were automated guns. His room was below ground level by several stories, and he needed to get up to the research lab, which was actually on ground level. (The rich doctor who had provided for this facility didn't like going underground to much, so his visits usually just went on and over to the labs). They really didn't need to worry about keeping the base in secrecy or anything though. It was in restricted corporate owned land in the middle of remote desert in southwest America. Not like there was a whole lot of traffic here.

The guard walked into the lab, just on time, 7:15 sharp. He walked inside the building, swipped his card; let it scan his retina; the normal sci fi stuff. Hell, it was amazing even if it had become clockwork to him. Not even in pulp science fiction he'd read occasionaly, which was quite imaginative, had come up with stuff like this. Too bad they'd wipe his memory afterwards, but at least it paid well.

He walked further down another long corridor, then another, then another, each time completely coated with the robot guns, cams, and eye-hurtingly bright lights. He reached the door, absently-mindedly greeted his co worker guards on this checkpoint in, and went through the ardous process of opening up the next door each time. The "door" was really like the safes on heavily secured banks, and it spun open only after a "DNA" test, another retinal scan, a voice recognition thing, standing on certain spot for a while until it changed color from red to blue, and a passcode or something like that. He wasn't sure about the specifics, he just did all the stuff to get it to open. Once he did, he walked into another eye piercing light, sat down into his chair, and began reading the paper.

Nothing passed for a long while, he read the crap in the paper. Some new Cold War event where Communism was threatening the free world again, all that jazz. The US and SU denouncing each other, fighting proxy wars, the arms races, the usual. The UN pretending like they were important. Some so called insider info on the markets and that. Page full of ads all claiming the provide the best deals possible for only about 9,001 payments of X dollars.

He put it down after it became too much to bear. Then he sort of sat around for a while. He looked at the security feeds on the television off to his left.

His job as guard was mostly to sit there.

And he sat there. Like usual.

God, he was glad this paid a lot, because it could get real boring real fast.

But today, something usual happened. The alarm sounded suddenly. Lights shut off and were replaced by the stunning red glow of emergency ones. A loudspeaker spoke up. "WARNING: Situation 12-A. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Repeat, Situation 12-A. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."

Situation 12-A? What was that again? Well, 12 meant it had to do with the lab and some experiment had gone wrong. A... meant... something... biological?

Ah, whatever. He pulled the gun off the rack next to him that all guards had and ran up to the door. It opened quickly for only a voice test, since the alert was on. He barged right into another corridor, where he was shortly followed by some more of his compatriots of the testing facility, all armed already. The rest of the men then poured in after a short delay, with some strange glow about them. Rumors about in the facility talked of teleportation experiments, but he hadn't believed it until now. One of the men asked him what was going on, since apparently he was the first one in.

"I don't know-" he began to answer.

He was cut off by a banging on the door. "Help me! Help me, damn it!"

The rest of the men raised their guns toward the entrance. The man he had just been talking to motioned for him to go foward. He did so, slowly and cautiously. He pulled open the door in a blur, however, and the scientist ran inside, out of breath.

The man who he'd talking to revealed himself as the (probably self appointed) "guard in charge". He asked the scientist what was happening. The scientist answered in a dazed, uncomprehensable gibberish. The guard in charge asked him to clam up, calm down, and then explain in "English, please". The lab-coat wearer did, and began again, this time much more clearly.

"We were running some experiments, like normal. This time we were trying to rejuvenate dead tissues, and it went all too well." He then tried to begin explaining some technical process of some magical healing mixture provided by the doctor who'd funded this confidental research center, but the guard told him to shut up and go on. Everyone was transfixed listening to him talk. "Well... as I said, it went too well. The damn _thing_ we made started moving again." "Like something out of Frankenstein," he heard another guard murmur."

"Well, go on!"

"So we hit the alarm. We were too scared to think straight, no matter how rational or intelligent we all think of ourselves to be. The damn thing probably wasn't gonna do anything to us. It was all sluggish and slow, you know? But it was startled by the sudden alarm and our movement. Plus, it seemed to notice our power generator. As one of us moved to shut it down, it snapped up, got all ghostly fast and strong, and jumped the guy at it. The rest tried to run, but it caught all of us except me. You need to shut the generator down before it overloads and kill the thing." Then a something scraped against the door, the slammed against it. The guards all raised their weapons toward the door uneasily. It then ripped the obstacle apart with superhuman strength.

"Shoot it! Shoot the damn thing!"

All hell let loose as the room was then illuminated by the flashes of the guns, dwarfing the little light provided by the dark emergency bulbs.

"Stop shooting! Stop shooting, damn you!"

They all stopped, guns still trained on the thing. It had gotten the scientist and two of twenty men. The guard in charge ordered a random man, a young _boy _as it seemed, perhaps just nineteen or eighteen, up to check if it was dead. He poked at it with his gun, and it seemed dead. He looked back at the men, looking relieved, and gave them a thumbs up. The rest of the men began lowering their weapons slightly.

But then its arm shot up in a spasm like motion, and it sank its teeth deep into him. The boy screamed, staggering off to the side. All the men lit up the hellish creature with a lead shower.

They only stopped when they'd emptied their clips entirely. The guard in charge ordered them all inside, to get a grip on the lab, after a short breather. He walked up to the boy, who seemed feverishly afraid, stomped on the thing, and shot it a bit more just to make sure. He looked up at him and tried reassuring him that it was fine and the thing was dead. The boy nodded. The guard patted him on the back and told him to take the rest of the day off and probably visit the medical station to check for rabies or something.

Then the guard looked back at him, and yelled at them to go inside. "What're you looking at?"

So they all went inside. The guard looked around, and it was a mess. The stench of dead bodies was already floating in the air. The guard in charge told them all the ignore it and the various creepy experiments around and keep going.

It was, somehow by (bad) luck, him that had to reach the generator. Though it wasn't really a generator.

More like a portal thing. As he shut it down, he thought he saw some smoky wisps leaving it, and it was almost like they were alive.

He was actually glad by now that his memory was going wiped later.

But it wouldn't come soon enough. They'd all be dead and the facility would be wrecked by the next sunrise.

* * *

Sniper ran. And he ran. He ran so much. He was sure he ran more than ever before in his life. And for the first time, he was truly scared.

After a while, no matter how much his instincts kept prodding him, he had to stop. Running around in the desert is tiring business.

When Sniper finally stopped, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion. But he pulled himself together, and told himself to get his bearings. So, he stood there, leaning over, panting hard for a good ten minutes or so. Somewhere in there he even threw up.

Some time passed, and he regained his senses. He swept his head around, checking to see if that... thing... were still pursuing him. It became clear it wasn't, and then he settled to the matter of figuring out where he had gone in his panicking stupor.

He looked around. Nothing but god forsaken desert. The base was nowhere to be seen. He stopped and told himself to think rationally. It couldn't be any worse than the Outback. He hoped he wasn't too rusty. But the bushman days seemed lifetimes ago.

Plus, he still had all his stuff. He had been so utterly terrified that he hadn't even bothered to dump his materials in his run. That might help him get back. He took a long drink from his bag first of all, then settled to think. Best to go back, right? Then he stopped and thought to himself through. It might not be too wise to go back. That thing could of taken anyone by now. Who knows who may or may have not been demonized. And they could also really be dead as well. So, what to do? He figured he had better take his chances going back. If he just went away, it would probably end up getting him somehow. At least, back at base, there might still be others.

He had this creepy feeling that someone was watching him, like some cheap horror flick. Sniper told himself to pull together and hurry and pulled out a compass to figure out what direction he had run in so he could backtrack. But the compass was now of no use. Like it couldn't get any worse, the damn thing had done something completely unnatural and was swiveling all over the place. There wasn't a magnetic rock formation for miles, and he certainly wasn't near the poles.

A chill ran down his spine. He told himself not to panic, taking another long swig of water. Then, he climbed to the top of the nearest sand dune. Getting a good view of things might help him. He might even find that he could see the base from here. No such luck though. Okay, okay then. How to get back?

Just as he was about to give up though in his scanning around, he hit a small, dark dot on his scope. That was probably it. But he also thought he saw something else along it. A bright, unmistakable dot.

Sniper waved it off and began walking back toward the base.

* * *

RED Engineer was walking by, whistling nonchalantly with his wrench held on his right arm placed against his shoulder. He wasn't really doing anything. Then he thought he heard something nearby. He tried to wave it off and kept walking. But then it called to him, this time much more pronounced and unequivocal. So he stopped and asked,"Who's there?"

The BLU Sniper answered back,"It's me, rengie!"

Engineer shrugged, said a little hmm to himself, and walked over. The Sniper, he could safely say, was a friend of his. Probably the closest in this place. Though the friendship had been born out of mutual dislike of Spies, it had grown. Besides, Sniper didn't really have others _he _could call a friend.

"So... Sniper, where ya been? A reminiscing journey through the desert? Ya want to share some of it?"

Sniper raised an eyebrow. "No, not at all... well, kind of. Just listen."

Then his voice lowered. "Ya see the dead bodies this morning?"

"Of who?"

"BLU Pyro and your team's Demo."

"They done gone missing, but I ain't seen them. Unless..."

Engineer showed him two small piles of ash. Sniper's jaw dropped.

"Ya mean they musta completely crumbled to dust? Already?"

"Yes, that appears to be the case."

Sniper then motioned Engineer over to the bushes. Engineer visibly tensed a little and got on guard a bit, but he obliged him. Then Sniper proceeded to enlighten Engineer of the riveting events that morning. After he finished, the Texan sort of looked at him for a moment.

"Well now that I think about it, blinper*, some weird things have been going around the base. Like... this morning, I saw some weird bright flickering off in the distance. Plus, well..." He motioned over to the BLU Engineer, off in a short distance. "He just... walked over, his helmet floated up, and then his neck elevated up to it..."

"Okay, so that's strange. What else?"

"This whole place must be going to Hell, okay? We got these ghostily bright flashes recurring, we got all those people going frickin' crazy, no one's Respawning, and the RED Sniper is over there blabbering about apples and his "BLOODY FRUIT SHOP"." "Nah, that last one's normal mate." They both shared a nervous laugh.

"Okay, what the hell do we do then, partner?"

"I guess we should spill it all to everyone sometime soon. Then figure out what to do. Most likely, we leave this shitty desert."

"Let's get started on that, alrighty?"

* * *

RED Engineer and BLU Sniper found everyone lounging around in the Tech Room. The Tech Room, obviously, was filled with all sorts of technology. But the special part was not that it was _just_ cutting edge crap, oh no, it was, though this, _this _was cutting edge crap that wasn't gonna see the light of day for a long while. Each was slated to be released in the future by the companies secretly, with dates plastered all about them. Little innovations in the future were really going to be genuine.

They found most of everyone in the Tech Room lying about a nice massaging couch, sprawled around watching some Brazilian telenovella to be released in 2009 or something. The reason was probably to test out the language devices, though they were a bit buggy. Occasionally they'd laugh. Spy also watched, amused, and asked to borrow Scout's language device, which he called an "earpiece". Then he made fun of Scout for listening to some song about twin rainbows. So as they unsuspectedly watched, Sniper and Engineer were figuring how to address the unsurmountable task of telling everyone that they needed to get the hell out of here.

"I figure we should just say something's wrong, and point to the evidence," Sniper whispered.

"So, I don't think that'll convince them," Engineer answered back, equally softly.

"Why not? Seems good enough to me."

"Well, all lot of crazy stuff has happened already, and they don't seem altogether too ready to go. They really don't seem inclined to care. The life here is quite comfortable, and they don't exactly fit anywhere else."

"True, true, but something's wrong around here. We have to convince them."

"Okay, whatever, let's give it a shot."

So Engineer and Sniper walked loudly into the room. No one seemed to notice. Engineer set down a RED Dispenser. No one still seemed to notice, despite how the Scout would usually call for Dispensers loudly. Engineer smashed his Dispenser with his wrench. Still no one paid attention. Slightly annoyed that no one had heeded them yet, Engineer threw his glove on to the ground.

"Hey, hey! Engineer! What the hell are you doing?" Scout yelled.

"Yes, we're trying to watch a goddamn show here, you un-American, um, not-American!" Soldier indignantly reported.

"Da! What leetle man and leetler man say! This leetle tee-lee-nov-er, it amuse me very big!"

Sniper tried to speak up to explain, but then BLU Spy spoke up, saying, "For once, I agree with the imbeciles. Leave now."

Sniper stormed off, seething. Engineer quickly followed. "Yah, and good riddance!" the remaining Demoman shouted before taking a swig of his rum. "Goddamn lads like ye are the reason I're the way I am!" he slurred more quietly.

* * *

"Wait up, Sniper! Where you going?"

"Away from this damn place. If those idiots don't know what's good for them, I'll be going now."

"No! Sniper! I'm sure we can convince them. Plus, whoever goes alone always ends up dying."

Sniper looked at him for a moment, with eye contact and all, and said clear as day, "I'll take my chances." As he walked off, Engineer slapped himself in the face. "Ugh..."

Engineer spent the rest of the waning hours of the day nursing a cold beer on top of one of the sheds near point C of the Gravel Pit [2], at first under the pretext of thinking of a way for himself to get everyone going, before it descended into self pity. He'd come so far on his determination alone, from a redneck family in the old South up to the smartest damn man anywhere, on all things mechanical and otherwise. If he done that, but lost his touch with people, what was the point? Then he'd reassure himself that _Sniper _was really just out of touch with people, and that might of been true. Then he'd think everyone else was just stupid. This cycle continued on for a while, before an alarm sounded like a splash of cold water.

For a few moments, he wondered how much he had been drinking for his eardrums to be picking up the alarms and ringing that much. Then he realised that he wasn't having an over active imagination when the Soldier ran by with a shotgun, muttering _hut hut hut hut_ and yelled at him to follow. Unless maybe he was Demo-level drunk right now. So he followed. They reached the BLU Spawn after a while of frenzied running. Engineer was panting, but Soldier barely indicated tiredness. He jumped up and pulled himself up to the tunnels going out of the Spawn area. He then gave Engineer a hand.

Engineer arrived in the area, the building in the Spawn itself, with a load of people there already. Both Heavy Weapons Guys, the RED Scout, the RED Sniper, the RED Pyro, the BLU Medic, the BLU Spy, the BLU Demo, and the other Engineer. They were really down on their number. All were crowded around the BLU Engineer. Engineer rubbed his eyes. His counterpart's neck showed no signs of the previously elongated state of it. Perhaps he was hallucinating. No, maybe he'd been taken as well. Hell, now he couldn't even trust himself.

"Engie, if you don't explain why you called the alarm right now, I'm going make your sorry ass even more sorry," the BLU Soldier said.

"Yeah, man, I'll frickin' bat your head in, I was kinda watching something on the TV."

Similar cries started all about. It went all out of control for a little bit, but then the RED Sniper pulled the out the nearby BLU Demo's sticky launcher, loaded it with a strange looking apple, waited a jiffy for the sticky launcher to tag the item inside with a detonator, shot it out, and blew it up. Apple bits hit everyone. He handed it back to the BLU Demo, who didn't seem to even notice anything in a drunken stupor.

"Listen to the man now, mates!"

The BLU Engineer then started stuttering nervously and indecipherably. The RED Sniper offered him an apple. He declined, then started speaking perfectly.

"Alright, ya all. I now this'll sound strange. But... something's surrounded the base. That something... already got the other Spy. The communications, as you know, have been cut off ever since the RED Soldier snapped. This something has been planning for a long while, and now we're knee deep in it. Now listen, ya all, silently."

The wind was howling loudly, probably in a dust storm starting. Faintly, however, over the noise a slight moaning and shuffling could be heard.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What the hell, blengie, I always thought you were a logical guy. Are you saying we're dealing with goddamn, uh, zombies here or something?"

The BLU Engineer pointed toward a nearby Dispenser which had a radar feed on it for additional evidence. It showed large spikes of strange energy nearby and there were dots all over the map coming in from every direction.

Everyone else looked really worried, especially the Medic. No one was worried over blengie's mental health now, of course. They were scared witless. Except for the RED Sniper. He didn't have many wits to begin with, and was idly chewing on a shiny green apple. Somehow, the RED Engineer also seemed relieved though, plastered alongside with his worry.

After a bit of scared silence, they reached an unsaid consensus that they had to act. They all grabbed weapons and various protection from the dust and ran outside, starting with RED Heavy.

"I know not of you cowards, but I not scared of leetle, leetle zawbie men!"

"Da! I agree! Let us keel leetle man!"

Demoman followed the two Heavies, talking drunkenly about grass hoops and someone's mother.

They all scurried out, threw open the door to the Spawn, and found themselves face to face with horrid apparitions they'd seen only in movies before.

"Well, what are you waiting for, men? Shoot them!" Soldier ordered. There was a dazed moment there. Then, everyone processed it and began shooting. Engineer brought his shotgun to bear and dispersed several rounds of buckshot into the faces of the nearby zombies. Having emptied his clip, he started building a Sentry. He saw that his carbon copy was building a Sentry up next to him as well. Perhaps the nest could hold them off. The Heavies spun up their guns and began consuming corporate money really fast. Demoman looked alive again, launching sticky after sticky and grenade after grenade into the horde. Pyro had a jolly good time, far better than he probably should of, roasting zombies. Even Sniper was contributing with his Machina which everyone normally thought of as an idiotic weapon (but of course no one would ever say) but now thoroughly loved. That left Spy and Medic, who were mostly standing around trying to appear useful. Spy would land an Ambassador shot every three seconds or so, at least, but Medic was completely useless. His Kritzkrieg was obvious overkill for bodies mostly already decomposed and turned to pudding by the Dustbowl heat. Everyone thought they were golden...

Suddenly, a much stronger one came along. It leaped right at the Soldier, whom it most likely considered the biggest threat to the horde due to the nature of his weaponry. It grabbed him hard, and he wheezed for help. Everyone else managed to turn their guns to it and kill it, however, the line was broken. In the time they had spent focusing on that, the rest of the zombies had streamed just enough closer to be too close for comfort by a few more feet or so.

"Aggh! I can't do it, man!" the Scout screamed in terror as he ran back.

No one had the will to stand after that and streamed after him. They all stuffed themselves inside the Spawn building and slammed the heavy door shut.

"Goddamnit! What the hell are we going to do now?" Engineer asked. No one answered. The rest of the lot seemed to appear to be asking the same thing.

Sniper had a grin on his face however. "You know, I was prepared for something like this."

"Wow. Is that so?" the Medic asked.

"No, not really. But I do have a plan, I think."

"Well! Get to it, maggot!" said the Soldier.

The zombies began banging on the steel blast door.

"Alright, everyone. Listen up-"

Everybody leaned in real close.

"You guys open that door and distract them. Soldier, blow a hole in the back of this building." Some silence passed before the RED Heavy spoke up. "That is all?"

Sniper smiled. "Have I ever failed you guys before?" Many voices began talking at once, with loads of "oh yeah"s and "yes"s and even one anecdote started up.

"Look, mates, just trust me." Everyone began shouting various things like "why should we?" or "unbelievable"s or "nope"s. Then a loud "BANG" sounded from the door. So then it was, once again, unaimously agreed upon what they were doing. Demoman set a load of stickies all over the entrance, and everyone else waited. Soldier shot a rocket at the back then, and Demo detonated the bombs. They started pouring in after a short delay (the bombs killed those in front), and the teams gave ground, but not much. They fired their weapons furiously. Scout yelled at Sniper to hurry up. Then, just as it seemed that this was Sniper's final trolling or something when a giant load of apples came tumbling down and smothered all the accursed creatures assaulting them. Collective sighs of relief and some angry for the delay hit the teams.

"A ton of apples a day keeps the undead horde at bay!"

* * *

The Administrator was a happy woman. Or at least as happy as such a power obsessed insane paranoid madwoman could be. And, today, after a nice communications cut off for an extended period so far, she was going to make her fantasty, that of ruling the world, true. All it would require was three phone calls. Oh yes, then... it'd all be hers. She'd figured it out now.

* * *

**Obligatory crap section (woo yeah!)**

*:Yes, it is blinper. Though it is a portmanteau of blu(e) and sniper, blniper or bluniper seems awkward to me.

[2]: Gravel Pit is located inside the Great Dustbowl Desert.

musical selection watch?v=P1nO4HGVWMQ&feature=


End file.
